It’s small, impossible to mow, and everything seems to be sloping down into the pit of despair.

Full disclosure, the ‘pit of dispair’ didn’t always look so horrendous. I think it was meant to be terraced garden beds at one point, but since we decided last year to build it up, we’ve been heaving all sorts of ‘fill’ in there — rocks, bricks, etc.

Here’s a look at from the top level. We took down the old picket fence that cut this area in half to make room for a clothesline (it’s a farmhouse – how could we not have a clothesline!?) and open up the space a bit to feel more ‘yardish’.

Here’s a few from the driveway area. Note, the driveway material (crushed stone/sand/dirt) seemed to make it up to the barn door, but grass is slowly overtaking it. We’d like to keep the area in front of the barn kind of yard-like, with a place for table, chairs, grill, etc…. but with the ability to move everything out of the way if we need to drive something into the barn. Note: there’s also an identical door/opening in the back of the barn, if we need to get something in there that might not fit through here.

Again, here’s a view from below. While we’ve got our barn guy here with his machinery, we talked about having him arrange some of these stones and building up the earth to to a less steep grade, so our furniture might actually sit level in the yard. Also, forming some better steps down, so you can actually step, rather than slide, down the hill.

So what do you think? We need ideas for how the patio should look as far as ‘flooring’ – should we do grass? pea gravel? something in one area and something else in another? We need ideas about how this ‘raised’ yard area should look and how to do the steps down.